Caduceus Poems for Hermes


Expect blood-thrilling wine, the brandished



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Expect blood-thrilling wine, the brandished

Thyrsis, anguished


intensities on crests and peaks—

dangerous secrets.


This One for whom the women burn—

Twice-Born

to spark violence of the senses

in the rites of dance:


Hermes presents him freshly swaddled

yo the stern god:



Father, from mortal Immortal rises:

It is Dionysus.

Calypso

Skimming the waves

light as a bird

in my golden sandles


A blur in the mirror

of the sea, I convey

the will of the gods
To Calypso on her island:

Must a goddess so lovely

stay here for ever lonely?—
His wife, his son his home.—

The message is: this will be torn

so that that may heal.
So I weave among you,

leaving each a piece



of Fate’s enormous news.




Caduceus
The kerykeion, or caduceus,

In ancient times was wielded by the herald

Ushering in the honey-tongued, fresh-faced drug

Rep from, say, far-flung Glaxos, neatly appareled,

With powdered horn from a young, lusty goat;

Or when, at the symposium, courteous

And tactful, he clinked on the libation jug

While the after-dinner speaker cleared his throat.






Theseus

Look closely at your thread,

Theseus: it, too, is a labyrinth.

Enter the Labyrinth once more:

Take up the thread, the rescue mission.

(Why would she let you lose your way?)

These torch-lit halls are echoing

With cries: follow the sounds to where

A carnivore with hornèd head
Lives at the center of the myth
By grazing on the virgin dead.


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